Almost nobody writes a perfect first draft. Many professional writers go through several drafts before submitting their piece for publication. Others only produce a few. The amount of time they spend drafting usually depends on the genre they’re writing in. A researcher might spend weeks or months on a longer article, but a blogger might spend a few hours on their latest post. The same idea applies to college and workplace writing, whether we’re talking about white papers or reports and brochures.
Every successful piece of writing begins at the idea level. Writers gather inspiration or motivation from a range of sources. You might see something on a news show you that has an impact on you. Maybe you disagree with a viewpoint, or someone’s use of evidence. Or maybe someone makes a point that intrigues you. It could be a problem you’d never heard of before, or a solution to a problem you’re familiar with.
The post overviews the major steps of the writing process, and also gives you some practical tips.
Invention & Inspiration
Most writers start by generating ideas. There are lots of ways to do this, and some writers prefer to jump right in to drafting. Writing helps them think. Others prefer to plan more. Either way, writing often starts in your head, before you even sit down at a computer.
Writing experts use the word invention to describe the process of generating and refining ideas. Ideas can come from unexpected places — commercials, YouTube videos, magazine covers, conversations with friends.
Here’s a list:
- Firsthand observations and experiences
- Memories
- Jobs, hobbies, interests
- Personal obstacles and dilemmas
- Reading (magazines, websites, etc.)
- Conversations
- Social media
Beginning writers often get worried about the idea of “writers’ block.” The truth is, the average person has thousands of ideas every single day. Our minds are constantly wandering over questions in our lives that are wellsprings for writing ideas. We’re naturally curious about the world, and if something matters to you then there’s a good chance a lot of people care about it. You just have to learn how to become aware of your thought process. You can do this by keeping a reflection journal, even an app on your phone where you stop and record your ideas when you catch your mind wandering.
One student developed an idea from a seemingly mundane problem. Her hair product stopped working as well when the company changed their formula. After mentioning it during class, a professor encouraged her to do some research on the company, and on the research and testing of cosmetic products. The student ultimately wrote an award-winning paper that explored the complicated process behind designing and marketing shampoos in accordance with FDA regulations. What began with a simple question turned into a full-fledged research project, internships, and eventually a job.
Brainstorming & Idea Mapping
Many writers began making an outline once they have a rough idea or question they want to explore. Although it may seem early to make a formal outline of your paper, it makes sense to begin a brainstorm or idea map. You can make these on paper with a pen, or you can use an app.
Freewriting & Exploratory Drafts
You can also skip the idea mapping stage if you want to simply begin an exploratory draft. In this kind of draft, you just start writing down your thoughts on the question or issue that’s caught your interest. You don’t need to worry about organization, cohesion, or grammar here. You’re essentially pushing yourself to think through your ideas and recording them as they come to you. It’s okay to stop and type questions, loose phrases, or even just words that occur as you write.
Research & Planning
You can start doing research as soon as you have a rough idea of what you’re going to write about. A lot of writers begin with background research. They browse online, and they even skim through sites like Wikipedia to build some basic knowledge on their subject. It’s also a good idea to write down what you already know about your topic.
Background research can play an important part in your early planning and drafting, because it helps hone your goals. At this point, you’ll start deciding what specific questions you have about your topic. You make choices about what you want to learn, and what you want to convey to your readers. For example, you might begin with a vague sense that you want to write about climate change, and then ultimately decide you’re going to write about recent developments in solar energy for a specific industry, or home owners.
The next thing you’ll do is focus on specific searches in library databases like ProQuest and Academic Search Complete. You’ll work on growing a list of keywords and search terms. You’ll evaluate sources as you go, and download them into a folder where you can begin reading and annotated them. Most writers gather more than they’ll need.
Drafting
You’ll probably start a formal draft after you’re satisfied with your outline and research. A lot of beginning writers try to start their formal draft too soon, before they’ve done enough planning and research. You can always do free-writing and exploratory drafting to get your basic ideas on paper, but you don’t have to rush to get a draft done. Sometimes, it makes the work harder.
There’s different ways to go about drafting. Some writers prefer to produce a first draft that focuses on conveying their ideas and informed opinions. They might reference trends or debates in research, but they’ll wait until later to go back and add specific quotations and citations.
Other writers find it helpful to line up all of their sources first. They’ll choose specific facts, statistics, and quotations they’re going to use for each section. They write a draft that’s mainly an outline of research. Then they’ll go back and flesh their draft out with their ideas and interpretations.
These are just two examples. The more you write, the more you’ll learn what kind of process works best for you.
Incubation
Many writers find incubation to be a helpful strategy throughout the process of writing their papers. When you start to feel overwhelmed, lost, or exhausted, that’s a sign to take a break and focus on something else. Trying to continue when you’re fatigued can just lead to work that you’re not happy with later, and you’ll have to redo it.
The good news is that your mind tends to work on problems even when you’re not giving them direct attention. Psychologists call this process incubation, and it’s a period when your unconscious mind takes over to help generate ideas and make important connections.
You can trigger incubation might ending your work session, and posing one or two key questions to think about while you rest, or do something else. You may need to do work for another class, or you might just want to hit the gym, go for a walk, grab some food, or even take a nap.
When you give your conscious mind a rest, you allow your unconscious to work on problems. Psychologists also refer to incubation as “deep thought,” and we’re not usually aware when it happens. Allowing your mind to incubate on a problem can sometimes result in big breakthroughs. That’s when many writers and innovators have their best ideas — almost by surprise.
Peer Review
Most professional writers and researchers don’t submit or publish their work right after they finish it. Some do, but typically they’ll send it to someone they trust first, for feedback. It might be an editor they work with informally, another writer, or a writers’ group.
A good peer reviewer plays an important role in your process. They do a lot more than just correct your style and grammar. They can help you think your goals for a piece. They can tell you if you’re thinking enough about your audience and how they’ll react to your piece. They can also give you perspectives that you hadn’t considered before.
Effective peer review relies on constructive criticism. They don’t cast judgement. Instead, they help you make your writing as good as it can be. You don’t have to listen to everything a peer reviewer says. Sometimes, they might not be able to tell you exactly how to revise your piece, but they can be extremely helpful in identifying trouble spots.
You can get more out of your peer review if you pose your own questions to someone when you send them a draft. If you’re not sure about your introduction, or a specific claim, then ask them to focus on that. Giving clear directions to a peer review helps them give better feedback.
Not every single thing you write has to undergo peer review. Some writers find peer review stifling, and they prefer to send their work directly to their readers. If you’re taking a formal writing class, odds are you’ll be expected to at least give peer review a shot.
Then you can decide whether it’s helpful.
Revision vs. Editing
Revision involves much more than proofreading and spell checking. Many writers make big changes to their work after a first draft. They might come across new research that prompts them to add entire paragraphs. Or they might decide to expand their thesis, which means they need to go back through their entire paper and adjust their claims accordingly. You might decide to cut 2–3 paragraphs out of your paper and save it for another project. Because revision can be a complex process, many writers keep several files on a paper in addition to the main draft — one for discarded passes, one for notes and reflections, and another to organize quotations and references.
Proofing
Line-editing and proofreading is usually the last thing you’ll do. At this stage, you might add phrases and tweak your language in places, look for typos, and take a close look at your punctuation. Don’t simply rely on word processing tools. They often miss mistakes. Some good strategies include reading your paper aloud to yourself, or reading it in revise order, beginning with the last paragraph. That will help you focus on the language, rather than the content.
Flow States & Procrastination
A lot of people avoid writing until the last minute. They find it painful. That’s usually because they don’t think much about their process, and they try to cram all of their writing into a day or two before a deadline. When you try to produce a paper from start to finish in a single day, then it’s no wonder that writing feels like a torturous experience. Add the fear of harsh feedback and bad grades, and you can see why people procrastinate.
The solution to procrastination is to lower your expectations a little, and to realize that writing involves a lot of steps besides just sitting at a laptop and typing as fast as you can.
Some writers can block out 8 or 9 hours to go through every stage of the process, but most of us can’t afford to carve out that much time away from our other responsibilities. We have to plan things out and create a schedule, and we have to stick to that schedule.
Writers and other content produces try to achieve what they call “flow states.” These are periods of time lasting 1-3 hours where they can free themselves from outside distractions and responsibilities. They tune out their internal critics, and stop worrying so much about what other people will think about their writing. They focus on simply expressing their ideas.
You can achieve a flow state by creating an environment that caters to creativity. For example, make a cup of coffee, get to a quiet place, and simply focus on reading or drafting an essay for a couple of hours. Don’t worry about the end result in terms of quality or length.
Just let yourself work.
If you can schedule routine blocks of time throughout the week to focus on writing or other subjects, then the creativity will come. The key is to build a habit that fosters long term creativity.
A good writing course can help with procrastination, because it breaks writing down into stages and scaffolds them. Your instructor will guide you through these stages, and provide feedback along the way. When you approach writing as a planned activity, it feels less overwhelming. It becomes less about achieving a grade, and more about using writing as a tool for thinking.
You might even enjoy it.
Writing as a Recursive Process
The stages of writing described here happen in a cycle. You can go through them more than once while working on a single piece of writing. They’re also recursive, which means you can revisit them when you need. Sometimes you’ll do peer review, and realize you need more research. Other times, you’ll decide you need to rethink your goals.
It can feel daunting and counter-productive to revisit earlier stages of the writing process, but that’s natural. Writers often realize they need to find a few more sources to back up a point when they’re writing.
New ideas can occur to you when you’re drafting. An experienced writer might ignore these ideas, but that’s not effective. When this happens, you don’t have to stop writing and immediately to back to research. Instead, you can just leave yourself a note in the margin, or keep a tab open on your computer where you type out thoughts or ideas as they occur.
Don’t feel bad about jumping around in the process.
That’s supposed to happen.
Figuring Out Your Process
Everyone writes at their own rhythm and pace, which can vary depending on the subject and type of composition. Some people prefer to write in big chunks of time, 3–5 hours. A few of us even like to block out an entire weekend to finish a draft. Some keep a regular schedule and write only during specific windows, like 7–10 am. Others just work in an hour or two of writing whenever they can. There’s no one size that fits all.
It’s worth thinking about your process as you write. Keep track of what situations and settings help you produce your best work. Develop a routine, and let it evolve over time. For example, you might learn that taking a short walk helps get your brain focused. You might enjoy listening to music. One student of mine likes to play movie soundtracks when she writers. Others prefer ambient music, and others need white noise or total silence.
Think about the places where you write. Some prefer crowded places like coffee shops, some like to write in their dorms or apartments, and others like settings like libraries or campus cafes.
It helps to think of all the various tasks that count as writing. For example, brainstorming and idea mapping counts as writing, but it can be easier to fit that in during a lunch break. You might complete a productive brainstorming session at a busy Starbucks. More serious reading and note taking might require a quieter place, like a library. When you get down to serious drafting, you might need to do it in your dorm and have multiple articles spread out on your desk, or be working from multiple screens.